


Good Dog

by Needle_Bones



Category: The Evil Within (Video Game)
Genre: M/M, Shifter and Vampire AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-15
Updated: 2015-04-15
Packaged: 2018-03-23 01:59:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,474
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3750700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Needle_Bones/pseuds/Needle_Bones
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hey look, it's a vampire!Joseph/shifter!Seb fic. I really have to thank my dear friend Cat for talking about this AU with me so much. I kind of just up-ended my idea bucket in our emails and I can’t thank her enough for bothering to wade through the weirdness <3</p>
            </blockquote>





	Good Dog

The sun was rising fast over Krimson City.

Sebastian raised his head from the chilled concrete floor as the light bled through the streets and back alleys around the small building. He shifted enough to get his arms under him, wincing as his fresh bruises caught and pulled. Neither of them had been expecting the fight they'd been drawn into. Dimly, he remembered Joseph dropping to one knee for an instant as a stray bullet dug into his shoulder, and the fact that he hadn't come to pull Sebastian to his feet yet was starting to worry him.

He could still smell the blood, metallic and heavy in the air, too fresh to have been saturated with Joseph's scent yet. If his partner was injured, they had a real problem. Joseph couldn't be moved during daylight hours. The sun would burn him to ashes within minutes if he were caught in it.

“Joseph?”

No response past a faint groaning snarl from a far corner.

Sebastian tried again, his throat dry and aching, wolf's ears pricking forward to catch any small sound they could. Stress-shifting had been a habit of his ever since the accident. “Joseph? Are you all right?”

“I'm fine,” came the strained reply. “No need to worry.”

It was obviously a lie. Joseph had pressed himself into a corner of the building, his legs drawn up near his chest. The left sleeve of his dress shirt was stained a deep ruby, almost black in the low light. The ragged patterns slid across his collar, dipping down below his black vest. The wound should have healed by then but from the quiet, ragged breathing reaching Sebastian's ears, the pain was far from gone.

It hurt to hear him breathing like that. It was such a human response to pain that it felt out of place on an immortal man, especially one who was normally so composed.

The shifter picked his way over the floor on unsteady legs, around the broken crates and shattered glass which had been sent skittering across the concrete, and dropped to his knees in front of his partner. The scent of sweat and cooling blood clouded around him and he swallowed against it, feeling dizzy for a moment before Joseph's voice brought him back to the room.

“Just leave me here, Seb,” he said, the words heavy with the paralytic sleep that always overcame him at daybreak. “It's better this way.”

“Not happening.” Sebastian shrugged out of his torn trench coat with a little difficulty and laid the fabric over his partner in a vain effort to keep the sun from his skin. It wouldn't be enough and he knew it but it might buy him a little time to think. The sun was pouring through the high windows now, heating the air over his head, burning off the fog that had blanketed the city over the night.

A fear of fire was something he and Joseph shared and while the vampire was far from glad to be the potential victim, Sebastian simply refused to lose another person to such a horrific death.

He made the mistake of lingering on that thought and the image of his small daughter lying stone-still in rubble, looking like any puppy would have, her tiny paws bloodied from scratching at the doors and walls in a blind panic, resurfaced along with the feeling of being held under frigid water.

“There's no sign of your daughter,” one of the firemen had told him as he staggered from the car and onto the lawn, one hand locked around his opposite wrist, reminding himself to stay human. “But we did find a small dog in one of the back bedrooms.”

“We don't have a dog,” he'd snapped. And then the world stopped. _Of course_ , he'd thought. _Of course she'd shifted - she must have been terrified._

Sebastian took a deep breath, ears lying flat against his tousled hair. If he got caught up in the past again, it'd be no good for either of them.

Joseph's breathing had quieted, his body going still and cold as daybreak drained him. Sebastian helped to slide him to the floor, letting him curl against the wall under his coat. He'd been right in a way though; injured or not, he couldn't move him now that the sun was up. He couldn't risk leaving him to get Kidman either, and his phone had been crushed underfoot during the scuffle.

He looked down at his hands. His nails had lengthened due to stress and he could feel his teeth changing as well. He had an idea but it wouldn't be comfortable for Joseph when he woke up. Still, it was damn sure better than dying on the floor of some abandoned warehouse.

His partner made a soft noise when Sebastian flopped down over him, his body shifting effortlessly between his human presentation and the man-sized wolf form he kept so carefully hidden. He didn't shift completely at work unless he absolutely had to and so lying there on the floor over the unnaturally cold body of his long-time friend was more than a little awkward at first but as the sun climbed higher and higher across the dome of the sky and the city began to stir around them, Sebastian caught himself relaxing. He had no way of knowing if this would work or not but it was all he had right then. It was that thought more than anything that made him bury his snout in the vampire’s hair, breathing in the scent of grave dirt and rust before the long night caught up with him and he slowly fell asleep.

\---------

Joseph woke up slowly.

As his senses returned, he began to register the solid weight pressing down on him. His first thought was that maybe Sebastian had buried him but he dismissed that fairly quickly as they were near the middle of the city when the sun rose. He shifted and heard a familiar snuffling sound near his ear, one he usually heard when Sebastian was dreaming of something unpleasant.

“Seb?”

“Mmm?”

“You're heavy.”

The weight and the scratch of fur disappeared. “You're awake.”

Joseph opened his eyes, cringing at the warmth that clung to him after Sebastian sat up and moved a little away from him. He could feel a thin layer of blood sweat on his skin. "And you're still here."

The man shrugged, the gesture awkward on his frame. "Wasn't about to leave my partner to cook," he said. Sebastian didn't do well with being put on the spot, especially when he’d just done something that most people would have considered to be heroic.

He sat there and watched as Joseph sat up and brought a hand to his shoulder. No pain anymore, but the blood had dried and collected an alarming amount of dog hair over the course of the day. Sebastian must have seen him cringing because Joseph could have sworn the man laughed before pushing himself to his feet and reaching down to help him up.

“Come on,” he said, pausing before letting go of his hand. “We’re about five minutes from late. There’s an extra shirt in my car if you want to change.”

“Thanks.” Joseph draped Sebastian’s trench coat around his shoulders without really thinking. “Although your shirts don’t fit me.” 

“It’s one of yours, actually. I mean, I tend to hair up your clothes all the time so... It was either carry an extra one or buy one of those lint roller things.”

Joseph paused, really looking at Sebastian for the first time in a long time. Too long, really. “Thank you,” he said, meaning it. “Not too many people would have done what you did. Not many shifters, at least.”

Sebastian made a noise somewhere between a scoff and a laugh. “Yeah, well, you’re always looking out for me. Least I can do is make sure you go home safe.”

Looking back on it, Joseph could never really explain what made him do it. Maybe it was just that Sebastian had been through a lot in his life but while it had made him rather cold at times, it hadn’t made him heartless. Maybe it was the fact that he was all he could smell thanks to spending the day using him as a shield. Or, most likely, it was the simple fact that he looked like his old self just then - Sebastian from before the fire.

He placed a hand on the top of Sebastian’s head, ruffling his hair. “Good boy,” he said, half-joking. Sebastian pushed his head against his hand, trying and failing to hide the smile tugging at his lips. Even more obvious was the quiet but steady thumping sound his tail made as it hit the backs of his dress pants. 

Joseph had missed that sound.


End file.
